Why Sarah Palin May be the Next President

The pendulum of political power swings back and forth, not on perpetual energy, but fueled externally by the negative energy from the political party out of power.  Small swings occur when the party in power is moderate or centrist. When the party in power is more activist or more conservative, then the swings are wider and the resulting backlash is more dramatic.  Look back a President Hoover.  The Depression occurred because a 10 year bubble on Wall St broke, and Hoover was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Hoover was a conservative and a minimalist toward government intervention, and that raised the ire of every American who saw their American dream become a nightmare. Roosevelt won a commanding victory, not for what he stood for as much as being- not Hoover. 

Obama won the election largely on the resentment of Bush, and not because Bush opposed Education, Health Reform, financial regulation, or environmental regulation, or even because he invaded Iraq.   Iraq started out as a campaign issue, but the economy was tanking in 2008 and McCain was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once he was even considered a moderate Republican and shunned by the conservative right.  He lost because he is a Republican and the problems of the economy were widely blamed on too little regulation of major investment banks, not unlike the great depression scenario. Try as he may, McCain couldn’t shake free of the Republican culpability for the sinking economy.  If the economy hadn’t crashed I would venture that Obama may not have won. Obama won largely because he was- not Bush.

So now we see the pendulum swinging back to the right, the far right I might add.  The economy hasn’t recovered.  The 85% of Americans who have health insurance, and like what they have, only see their taxes going up and the government going deeper into debt. The environment, civil rights, energy independence, financial regulation, education, health reform, and immigration reform are all points of great disagreement, but they are not the core reasons why people would vote Obama out of office. Clinton was told, “It’s the economy stupid”. The state of the economy wins and loses elections. Everything else is just a distraction.

If the economy isn’t back on track by 2012, and unemployment isn’t down to at least 6%, Obama will lose his re-election bid, even if he’s running against Sarah Palin.  Voters will be blind to her incompetence because they won’t be voting for her, they’ll be voting for- not Obama. I truly hope I’m wrong.